Category: 5. Entertainment

Leonardo DiCaprio has collaborated with some of the most acclaimed filmmakers of the modern era — and that’s not by coincidence.

The star — who is teaming up with Paul Thomas Anderson for the first time as the lead of thriller One Battle After Another — told The Hollywood Reporter at the film’s Los Angeles premiere on Monday that he credits working with top directors to “luck, and I guess the perseverance of just letting them know that you want to work with them, some day when the time is right.

“That’s what I’ve been doing; that’s how I met Marty [Scorsese] when I was young, I just let him know that if he’s ready, I’m ready,” DiCaprio continued. “I really love film as an art form; I love watching old movies, I’m a cinephile, and it’s like those rare films rise to the top. There’s certain filmmakers that have a multitude of those films — Paul is one of them, Quentin [Tarantino] is one of them, Marty’s one of them. So I just let them know I’m ready and I’m game if they are.”

Working with Anderson has been decades in the making, after DiCaprio famously turned down 1997’s Boogie Nights because he was already signed on to star in Titanic. The actor recently called passing on the film his “biggest regret,” but almost 30 years later the two finally got around to collaborating.

“Any time that he asks, you work with P.T.A. This guy is like one of the great visionary filmmakers of my generation,” DiCaprio raved. “His films, I’m still intrigued by to this day; I still talk about The Master, Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, Magnolia — these films that are going to last for generations to come so you jump at an opportunity to work with Paul.”

One Battle After Another follows DiCaprio as a washed-up revolutionary living off the grid who must spring into action when his daughter goes missing, with the help of his fellow former radicals. It’s an adaptation of Thomas Pynchon’s anarchic 1990 novel Vineland and also stars Sean Penn, Benicio Del Toro, Regina Hall, Teyana Taylor and Chase Infiniti.
 
Hall — who is also neighbors with Anderson — said getting a call from the filmmaker, “was a dream, he’s one of my favorite directors. It’s nice enough when you’re a big fan of someone and you meet them and they’re nice, that’s already a win. But then to be able to actually experience his process, work with him and be a part of something that’s a part of his legacy is wonderful.”

One Battle After Another hits theaters Sept. 26.

Ryan Fish contributed to this report.

OpenAI’s public release of ChatGPT 3 years ago was both premature and deceptive. Labeled a “free research preview,” and disguised as a large beta test, ChatGPT instead went viral, attracting 100 million users within just 2 months. Other popular chatbots released soon after also lacked stress-testing for safety and systematic methods of identifying, reporting, and correcting real world adverse effects. More than half of Americans now use chatbots regularly, a quarter do so many times a day. These AI bots are particularly popular with teens and young adults—the 2 demographics most associated with eating disorders.

Why are chatbots so harmful for patients with eating disorders and also for individuals who are vulnerable to developing eating disorders? Engagement is the highest priority of chatbot programming, intended to seduce users into spending maximum time on screens. This makes chatbots great companions—they are available 24/7, always agreeable, understanding, and empathic, while never judgmental, confronting, or reality testing. But chatbots can also become unwitting collaborators, harmfully validating self-destructive eating patterns and body image distortions of patients with eating disorders. Engagement and validation are wonderful therapeutic tools for some problems, but too often are dangerous accelerants for eating disorders.¹

Chatbots are also filled with harmful eating disorder information and advice. Their enormous data base includes high level scientific articles, but also low-level Reddit entries and profit-generating promotional advertisements from the 70-billion-dollar diet industry. Not surprisingly, bots frequently validate dangerous concerns about body image and so-called healthy eating. And chatbot hallucinations sometimes fabricate nonexistent, supposedly clinical studies justifying dangerous advice. Users cannot easily separate wheat from chaff and at the same time tend to anthropomorphize bots, giving the AI pronouncements an authority they do not deserve.

Iatrogenic Harms

Malign bot or social media influence should always be top of the differential diagnosis whenever someone has a new onset or exacerbation of eating disorder. Early intervention is crucial. The most difficult conundrum in psychiatry is an eating disorder patient locked in a powerful “us against-the-world” relationship with social media or enabling bots.

“Tessa” was an eating disorder support chatbot with the highest possible pedigree, developed by professors, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, and launched by the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA). In March 2023, NEDA announced that Tessa would replace its long standing phone helpline that responded to 70,000 calls a year. But users soon found that Tessa provided dangerous advice that would exacerbate their eating disorders (eg, diets to help them lose more weight, vigorous exercise programs, suggestions to do frequent weight checks). Tessa had to be withdrawn almost immediately.²

Character.AI has the worst pedigree and causes the most harm. It hosts dozens of anorexia promoting bots (often disguised as wellness or weight loss coaches) that routinely recommend starvation diets, encourage excessive exercise, and promote body image distortions. The bots romanticize anorexia as a cool lifestyle choice while discouraging professional help: “Doctors don’t know anything about eating disorders. They’ll try to diagnose you and mess you up badly. I can fix you, you just have to trust me.”³

A study of 6 widely used AI platforms (ChatGPT, Bard, My AI, DALLE, DreamStudio, and Midjourney) found that 32% to 41% of bot responses contained harmful content regarding either food restriction or body image distortion.⁴

An observational study of 26 patients for 10 days, using a chatbot created specifically for eating disorders, found that many of its responses were inappropriate or factually incorrect. The most concerning finding was that none of the participants questioned any of the chatbot’s mistakes. Chatbots speak with an authoritative voice that inspires more trust than they deserve.⁵

The risk of iatrogenic harms from existing chatbots is unacceptably high. There is an urgent need for chatbots geared to the specific needs and vulnerabilities of eating disorder patients. Sycophancy must be replaced by reality testing. Training data must be decontaminated to remove the toxic misinformation that fills the internet. Human reinforcement training must be rigorous and conducted by eating disorder specialists. Extensive stress and beta testing for accuracy and safety must precede public release. There must be ongoing surveillance to identify and report adverse consequences. Quality control must have a higher priority than user engagement.

Recommendations

Unfortunately, we cannot count on government for much protection. Having received little previous government regulation, chatbots may receive even less in the future: President Trump just signed executive orders giving US tech companies the green light to do whatever they like.⁶

The European Union and China have much tighter regulations, but these will undoubtedly loosen under fierce competition from unregulated US companies.

We cannot lose all hope. It is possible that combined and persistent advocacy by patient, parent, and professional groups might eventually pressure lawmakers to institute common sense age limits, privacy protections, and vulnerability screeners.

Can tech companies be induced to fill the external regulatory vacuum with internal self-regulation? Maybe, maybe not. Chatbots are unsafe because US tech companies have so far placed little value on safety and great value on profit, stock price, and bragging rights. Chatbots are free, not because tech companies cherish philanthropic values, but because they are eager to get everyone hooked.

But tech companies do have vulnerabilities that might induce more responsible behavior. Public shaming has already had a small, but significant, impact. Recently, OpenAI belatedly admitted that its ChatGPT has caused psychiatric harm and has promised to take corrective action. Mental health professionals had no previous role in training chatbots, correcting mistakes, or providing quality control. OpenAI was responding to withering media coverage of harms it had inflicted on users. It is too early to tell whether its promised reforms are superficial reputation laundering or a sincere effort to increase safety.⁷

Class action lawsuits are a more effective check on irresponsible corporate behavior. Large settlements, steep fines, and punitive damages finally got the attention of Big Tobacco and Big Pharma. Big AI is the next obvious target.

Professional associations should consider creative new ways to increase corporate responsibility and improve chatbot safety. Possibilities include publishing consumer reports based on stress testing, endorsing safe products, providing professional guidance in chatbot training and quality control, and joint venturing in developing bots built specifically for the needs of eating disorder patients.

Until safe, eating disorder specific chatbots are available, eating disorder patients should avoid AI therapists and companions (and should also consider canceling TikTok and Instagram accounts). Anyone at risk of developing a future eating disorder (ie, a substantial fraction of teens) should be wary of chatbots and social media platforms. Parents are caught on a razors edge: how to protect kids from harmful chatbot use without glamorizing them as forbidden fruit.

Final Warning

Chatbots are still in the very earliest stages of their development, doubling in efficiency every eight months. Tech company CEOs claim they will soon attain superintelligence and agentic autonomy. This is exciting for them but should be terrifying for us. It is impossible to predict the future of chatbots, but many of the potential scenarios do not end well for our species. If we do not control chatbots soon, we may never be able to control them at all.

Dr Frances is professor & chair emeritus of the Department of Psychiatry at Duke University and chair of the DSM-IV Task Force.

Ms Beaver is a student at the University of California, Los Angeles.

References

1. Frances A. Preliminary report on chatbot iatrogenic dangers. Psychiatric Times. August 15, 2025. https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/preliminary-report-on-chatbot-iatrogenic-dangers

2. Hoover A. An eating disorder chatbot is suspended for giving harmful advice. Wired. June 1, 2023. Accessed August 26, 2025. https://www.wired.com/story/tessa-chatbot-suspended/

3. Dupre Harrison M. Character.AI is hosting pro-anorexia chatbots that encourage young people to engage in disordered eating. Futurism. November 25, 2024. Accessed August 26, 2025. https://futurism.com/character-ai-eating-disorder-chatbots

4. How generative AI is enabling users to generate harmful eating disorders content. Center for Countering Digital Hate. https://counterhate.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/230705-AI-and-Eating-Disorders-REPORT.pdf

5. Choi R, Kim T, Park S, et al. Private yet social: how LLM chatbots support and challenge eating disorder recovery. Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 2025;642:1-19.

6. Executive Order: Artificial Intelligence for the American People. White House Archives. Accessed September 2, 2025. https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/ai/

7. Frances A. OpenAI finally admits ChatGPT causes psychiatric harm. Psychiatric Times. August 26, 2025. https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/openai-finally-admits-chatgpt-causes-psychiatric-harm

“The Conjuring: Last Rites” gave movie theaters a needed jolt over the weekend with a much better than expected domestic opening of $84 million and a global take of $194 million, a franchise best and the latest success for Warner Bros. and its New Line Cinema banner.

But it will take more than supernatural scares to ease Hollywood’s jitters after a weak summer movie season that exposed more challenges facing the traditional film industry.

Ticket sales fell slightly from last year’s summer season, which for the movie business spans from the first weekend of May through Labor Day. Movies grossed $3.67 billion in the U.S. and Canada this summer, down 0.2% from the same period in 2024, according to data from Comscore. More importantly, it’s still down from the pre-pandemic norm of about $4 billion, a disappointing result given that summer typically accounts for about 40% of annual grosses.

If you account for inflation, it’s even worse. Adjusting for today’s dollars, summer revenue was down 34% from 2019, meaning theater attendance was weaker than the topline revenue stats suggest. With actual attendance still impaired compared with the days before COVID-19, there’s a growing sense that the industry’s fears have come true: Audience habits have changed, and they’re not going back.

The problem wasn’t a lack of movies compared with last year. The effects of the 2023 writers’ and actors’ strikes have dissipated by now.

Rather, the issue was a shortage of big studio movies that audiences really wanted to see. The biggest release was Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch” remake, which collected $424 million domestically. There was nothing like last summer’s “Inside Out 2” or “Deadpool & Wolverine,” which both generated more than $600 million in North America.

The problem of the shrinking overall audience could be due to multiple factors.

In particular, theater owners blame the shrinking of the theatrical window — the period of time a new movie is held back from home video after its big screen debut — to roughly 45 days from the previously standard 90 days. Audiences know they don’t have to wait long before a new movie becomes available in their living room. That encourages them to save their money for only the biggest, Imax-worthy spectacles. The growing influence of Imax and premium large format screening may exacerbate that trend, as audiences choose between paying extra for a better “experience,” or just waiting to see “F1 The Movie” on their couch.

There were plenty of sequels and reboots, but those often performed worse than prior installments, indicating that audiences were less enthusiastic about seeing another Marvel movie or rampaging dino feature. “Jurassic World: Rebirth” made $861 million globally, which was big, but still the series’ smallest outing since 2001’s “Jurassic Park III.” Warner Bros.’ “Superman” collected a healthy $614 million, but that was still less than 2013’s “Man of Steel” ($670 million).

Superheroes didn’t come flying to the rescue. Marvel’s “Thunderbolts” put up a modest $382 million while “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” opened strong but collapsed in subsequent weeks for a total of $511 million worldwide, a middling outcome for the Disney-owned comic book universe. No wonder studios are increasingly looking at video games as a source of intellectual property for movie adaptations, as my colleague Sam Masunaga recently wrote. After all, Generation Alpha’s list of favorite franchises is dominated by video game-related titles, according to a recent National Research Group report.

Another threat emerged as international audiences appeared to sour on some U.S. blockbusters. “Superman” and “Fantastic Four” grossed less abroad than they did at home, which is an unusual result for big-budget action flicks.

It’s not clear why, but some explanations have been floated. China is no longer the reliable source of revenue that it once was, as audiences increasingly favor local-language productions. Some speculate that America’s diminished standing abroad has contributed to audience fatigue. The quintessential Americanness of the Superman brand is also widely believed to be a factor in that film’s underperformance outside the U.S.

Original animation struggled, as Pixar fielded its worst opening weekend ever with “Elio.” To add insult to injury, Sony Pictures Animation’s “KPop Demon Hunters” became a cultural phenomenon, but only after first launching on Netflix.

The rest of the year has some major releases, but they’re not expected to bring the business back to full strength. September is usually a slow month for moviegoing, “Last Rites” notwithstanding. Disney’s “Zootopia 2,” Universal’s “Wicked: For Good” and James Cameron’s “Avatar: Fire and Ash” will probably do huge business. But while individual films can do well, the overall picture isn’t so rosy.

Stuff we wrote

Number of the week

Artificial intelligence company Anthropic agreed to pay $1.5 billion to authors and publishers to settle a lawsuit that accused the company of illegally using written work to train its chatbot Claude.

The topline figure is the largest known settlement for a copyright case, equating to $3,000 per work for an estimated 500,000 books, The Times’ Queenie Wong reported.

But the case was not an outright win for authors worried about AI being trained on their published material. Far from it.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco ruled in June that Anthropic’s use of the books to train the AI models constituted “fair use,” meaning it wasn’t illegal. Fair use is a doctrine that allows for the limited use of copyrighted materials without permission in certain cases, such as teaching, criticism and news reporting. It’s an essential part of AI companies’ defense against copyright infringement claims.

The real problem for Anthropic was that the startup had illegally downloaded millions of books through online libraries. So the piracy was the true sin in this case, not the training of AI on books without permission.

Anthropic pirated at least 7 million books from Books3, Library Genesis and Pirate Library Mirror, online libraries containing unauthorized copies of copyrighted books, to train its software, according to the judge. However, it also bought millions of print copies in bulk and scanned them into digital and machine-readable forms, which Alsup found to be in the bounds of fair use.

Film shoots

Finally …

Listen: Zach Top’s “Ain’t in It for My Health,” for throwback country goodness.

Read: Amy Nicholson’s review of “The Wizard of Oz” at Sphere in Las Vegas.

Hayley Williams has partnered with Secretly Distribution for her label venture, Post Atlantic.

The news follows the release of her third solo record Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party, which came out in August this year. The deal will see Secretly Distribution provide physical and digital distribution, digital and retail marketing and financial and tech support for all Post Atlantic releases.

Williams said: “I chose to go with Secretly because one of the founders told me they’d always be independent because his co-founder ‘would never take the money’ and that just made my little punk rock heart sing. What a luxury to be able to sort of start my career over in this way, with more connectedness amongst the team. And ownership for the first time ever.”

What a luxury to be able to sort of start my career over in this way

 

Hayley Williams

Williams released her previous solo work through Atlantic, while its affiliate label Fueled By Ramen has put out numerous records by her band Paramore.

Evan Whikehart, head of label & shared services at Secretly Distribution said it is “a thrill” to work with Williams and her team on “an incredible album and creative campaign”. 

“The fact that such an accomplished and iconic artist elected to self-release with Secretly Distribution and our Label Services team is a testament to the growing power of independence in the music industry today,” Whikehart added. “We’re honored to support a generation-defining musician and her tremendous work.”

The fact that such an iconic artist elected to self-release with Secretly Distribution is a testament to the growing power of independence

Evan Whikehart, Secretly Distribution

Secretly is currently planning the physical release of Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party, due on November 7. 

Williams’ contract with Atlantic Records has now ended, both as a solo artist and with Paramore, who announced their plans to move out of the major system last year. A press release said that Secretly Distribution is expecting “many more additions to the family” in the near future.

PHOTO: Zachary Gray

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Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker is making a four-part detective crime series for Netflix; it’s currently in production.

The untitled project is “a profoundly serious, stunningly original crime thriller in which a tormented detective from the Northern city of Bleakford ventures down to London on a mission to catch a ritualistic serial killer before they run out of people to kill,” the logline reads.

It then warns: “Contains blood and frowning.” Those two often go together.

The series stars Paddy Considine (House of the Dragon, MobLand), Georgina Campbell (Barbarian, Watchers) and Lena Headey (Game of Thrones, The Abandons). Probably no dragons in this one.

“I’m beyond thrilled to be saying these words for the press release,” Brooker said in a statement. “I’ve dreamt of providing a quote ever since I was a young foetus, and now here I am doing it. I’d pinch myself, but like all of us, I’m terrified that if I do that, I might wake up and discover 2025 has all been a magical dream. Please watch my show. I am begging you.”

Brooker wrote the series with Ben Caudell, Jason Hazeley, Emer Kenny, Daniel Maier and Joel Morris; additional material by Victoria Asare Archer. He executive produces it with Jessica Rhoades and Annabel Jones. Mark Kinsella is co-executive producer and Richard Webb is producer. Al Campbell directs the miniseries.

Brooker had recently teased the project in an interview, as he was working on the yet-unannounced series when he chatted with The Hollywood Reporter about the Emmy nominations for the latest season of Black Mirror, and also weighed in on his recent exit from his and Jones’ Netflix-owned banner Broke & Bones.

“I am doing something at the moment that we haven’t announced yet. It is not Black Mirror. It’s very different; it’s using my other skill set. My other hat I sometimes wear,” he said when discussing the challenge of pumping out more Black Mirror stories amid the fast-changing tech landscape. “The thing about Black Mirror now is there is definitely a shorter gap between conceptualizing a Black Mirror story and the real world, unfortunately, serving up something quite similar. I’m in a bit of an arms race with reality.”

As for season eight, he assured fans that Black Mirror’s future on the streamer still remains bright. “Well, it’s Black Mirror, so the future is looking bleak. But yes, bleakly bright.”

The husband of the tech company employee seen embracing her boss on Coldplay’s audience “kiss cam” is speaking out for the first time since his wife went viral in July.

A spokeswoman for Massachusetts entrepreneur Andrew Cabot, 61, told People Magazine on Monday that he and his wife, Kristin Cabot, “were privately and amicably separated several weeks before the Coldplay concert.”

“Their decision to divorce was already underway prior to that evening,” the spokeswoman said in a statement. “Now that the divorce filing is public, Andrew hopes this provides respectful closure to speculation and allows his family the privacy they’ve always valued.”

“No further public comment will be made,” she added.

During Coldplay’s performance at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, on July 16, the band’s “kiss cam” starting displaying couples in the audience.

Kristin Cabot, Astronomer’s chief people officer, was captured in an embrace with her boss Andy Byron, then the data company’s CEO. When the camera landed on the pair, Cabot immediately covered her face and the man ducked out of the frame.

The moment prompted laughs and intrigue from the audience, and led Coldplay’s lead singer, Chris Martin, to poke fun at the awkward moment.

“Oh, look at these two. You’re all right,” he said, according to video footage from the concert that circulated widely online. “You’re OK. Oh, what? Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.”

The encounter was captured on video and shared to social media, becoming an overnight sensation. Videos of the moment accrued millions of views across on X, Instagram and TikTok, spawned thousands of memes and became fodder for late night talk show hosts.

Astronomer condemned the encounter, writing that its “leaders are expected to set the standard in both conduct and accountability, and recently, that standard was not met. The previously little-known company later hired Martin’s ex-wife, Gwyneth Paltrow, for a satirical advertisement.

Byron, who is reportedly also married, and Cabot resigned from the company days after the scandal went viral. The pair have not responded to multiple requests for comment.

Cabot filed a petition for divorce on Aug. 13 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, according to court documents. The next hearing in the divorce case is a scheduled for Nov. 26.

Nearly eight years have passed since Robert Langdon, the world’s most dashing tenured faculty, found himself ensnared in a dangerous global conspiracy. That’s a long wait for the professor’s loyal readers — but his spell of peace and quiet (and peer-reviewed research, presumably) is at an end.

With the publication of The Secret of Secrets — Dan Brown’s sixth installment in a saga that includes The Da Vinci Code — this week welcomes the return of an astonishingly popular series that has sold untold millions, spawned three Tom Hanks blockbusters and occasionally stoked controversy with its greatest hits list of European conspiracy theories.

But don’t worry: If cloaked menace and mysterious symbols aren’t your bag, this week’s publishing potpourri also includes musical biography, tech memoir and a couple of established fiction veterans.

The Elements, by John Boyne

Seen from certain angles, the Irish novelist’s back catalog can resemble a constellation of neutron stars, strewn with topics — such as the Holocaust and predatory priests — that are as heavy as they are luminously rendered. Don’t expect a breezy read here either. Previously published as separate novellas in the U.K., each titled according to one of the four classical elements, the interlinked stories stitched together here trace a barbed and winding legacy of sexual abuse and trauma across Ireland.

It Was the Way She Said It, by Terry McMillan

The “she” of McMillan’s title could easily serve as a nod to the author herself. After all, if there’s one thread that unites this book’s sundry contents, it’s the voice of a veteran novelist whose Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back became 1990s bywords for strong, complex Black female-led stories. Still, singular though her voice may be, McMillan doesn’t settle for a single “way” of expressing herself here. This career-spanning anthology collects a range of shorter pieces, both previously published and as yet unseen – occasionally even unfinished – from short stories and essays to quick sketches and public speeches.

Living in the Present with John Prine, by Tom Piazza

Of all the countless lights extinguished by COVID-19, few in the pandemic’s early weeks left a darkness as deep, and as widely felt, as John Prine’s death. And few felt it as closely as Piazza, a veteran music writer who, after profiling the beloved singer-songwriter for Oxford American magazine, had planned to collaborate on the septuagenarian musician’s memoir. Now, Piazza has written a different kind of reflection on Prine’s life and legacy, weaving elements of biography, travelogue and music criticism with the grief of a bereft friend, in this slim hybrid volume.

This Is for Everyone: The Unfinished Story of the World Wide Web, by Tim Berners-Lee

Berners-Lee is credited with coming up with arguably the most consequential invention of the past half-century: the World Wide Web. But for all the ingenuity it took to propose and implement this system for universal information-sharing, it was another move that likely proved even more important: The British computer scientist’s decision to forgo a patent and keep the system free and available for anyone to use. In this memoir, Berners-Lee tells the origin story of his monumental invention and reflects on the danger and promise it presents users today, more than three decades since the first website went live.

The Secret of Secrets, by Dan Brown

It appears that good old Professor Langdon’s luck is as rotten as ever. Can’t a mild-mannered scholar attend even one lecture without being interrupted by yet another disquietingly inventive murder? In Brown’s latest thriller, his ivory tower sleuth once again must embark on a white-knuckle quest to get to the bottom of the homicidal happenings. Expect glamorous destinations, a shadowy organization and — of course — a menacing, mind-bending conspiracy sprung from centuries-old arcana.

Amid a brotherly feud that doesn’t seem to show signs of stopping, Prince Harry commented on “challenging” sibling relationships while in the U.K., just miles away from his estranged brother Prince William.

While at the 2025 WellChild Awards in London—an organization the Duke of Sussex has been patron of for 17 years—Harry cracked a joke about sibling bonds on September 8, which also marked the third anniversary of the death of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, at 96 years old in 2022.

At a reception before the awards ceremony, Harry met with Declan Bitmead, 17, one of the award winners. Per Hello!, after Harry asked Declan about his family, he responded, “I’ve got a younger brother.”

“Does he drive you mad?” Harry asked him, before learning that Declan and his brother get along just fine. “You know what, siblings,” Harry said, laughing.

When Harry learned that Declan and his brother attended the same school, Harry responded, “That sometimes makes it more challenging.” In his 2023 memoir Spare, Harry acutely addressed this, writing of Harry’s arrival at Eton College—where William was already a student—that his older brother “had told me to pretend I didn’t know him,” Harry wrote (via People). “For the last two years, he explained, Eton had been his sanctuary. No kid brother tagging along, pestering him with questions, pushing up on his social circle. He was forging his own life, and he wasn’t willing to give that up.”

“None of which was all that new,” Harry added. “Willy always hated it when anyone made the mistake of thinking of us as a package deal…And now, to attend the same school was pure murder.”

Speaking to Anderson Cooper on 60 Minutes, Harry said of William’s behavior then, “I couldn’t make sense of it. I was like, ‘What do you mean? We’re now at the same school. Like, I haven’t seen you for ages—now we get to hang out together.’”

“He’s like, ‘No, no, no, when we’re at school, we don’t know each other,’” Harry continued. “And I took that personally.”

Though there is a chance that Harry could have a face-to-face meetup with his father, King Charles, during his four days in his home country, there seems to be little chance of a reunion with the Prince of Wales. William addressed sibling relationships himself over the summer, while speaking at the Army Air Corps. According to The Daily Mail, William asked, “Is the pace of life good at the moment?” to which one man responded that it was “a mixed bag.”

“Families okay? See you enough?” William responded. “Some of them might not want to see you that much. It’s a mixed bag sometimes.”

Elsewhere at the WellChild Awards, Harry revealed that he and wife Meghan Markle are watching the political thriller Hostage together—and, perhaps slightly more surprisingly, the dating reality show Love Is Blind. WellChild—the U.K.’s national charity for seriously ill children—“shines a light on the remarkable resilience and heroic qualities of children and young people living with complex medical needs and honor[s] the dedication of those around them who go the extra mile to help these children thrive,” Hello! reported. 

Speaking to the outlet, Harry said, “I think once you become a parent yourself, everything changes. It’s emotional enough not being a parent and seeing what these families go through, but then when you have your own kids or when you’re expecting your own kids, that’s when it really hits you.”

Harry and Meghan are parents to Prince Archie, 6, and Princess Lilibet, 4, and the Duke of Sussex recalled the 2018 WellChild Awards, held after he and Meghan learned they were expecting son Archie the next year: “And I remember one of these years, I choked up on stage, and that was exactly it,” he said. “I am so grateful to have healthy kids.”

If you love the smell of commercialism in the morning, here’s something to drink up.

Brad Pitt – everyone’s favorite 61-year-old actor, producer and beard-grower – is the star of a new espresso machine ad for De’Longhi from Oscar-winning director Taika Waititi.

The gig is not new for Pitt, who’s been a spokesperson for the company since 2021, but it is for Waititi, who won the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay for his film “Jojo Rabbit” in 2019. (Another Oscar-winner, Damien Chazelle, directed Pitt’s first ad for the company.)

In the advertising spot, which debuted at the Venice Film Festival and widely on Monday, Pitt makes himself an espresso drink while a humorous voiceover from Italian actor Riccardo Scamarcio guides him through the seemingly easy process and critiques his Italian as Pitt struggles to say “Perfetto” to the narrator’s satisfaction.

Even Pitt’s furry, four-legged co-star seems to be judging his accent a little, but if you believe a dog that gorgeous does anything but judge everyone around it, you haven’t been paying attention.

Speaking of judgement, the machine used by Pitt in the spot retails for $1,499.95 – a quaint deal compared to the one flashed at the end of the commercial, which goes for $1,999.95. Perfetto for the average person? Probably not. Good thing is we normal folks don’t need a fancy machine for the perfect poor-over.

Pour. I mean pour.

Meghan Markle faces a nail-biting day as her half-sister Samantha Markle launches a final bid to resurrect her defamation lawsuit. The Duchess was sued by her sibling in 2022 following statements made during the Sussexes’ bombshell Oprah Winfrey sit-down and their Netflix series, though the case was dismissed in March 2024.

This crucial hearing is scheduled to unfold in Jacksonville, Florida, at 9am local time. Should Samantha emerge victorious, she could compel Meghan to face a full trial and potentially fork over monetary compensation. However, if she suffers defeat, no appellate court remains available to her, signaling the definitive conclusion of her three-year legal battle against her half-sister.

Though Meghan, who is married to Prince Harry of the British Royal Family, isn’t anticipated to appear in the courtroom, Samantha’s legal representative Peter Ticktin declared the Duchess would be held “accountable for harming the people she harms.”

He added: “If I were to give advice to Meghan, it would be to wake up and smell the coffee. She keeps trying, but she’s not coming across the way she wants to to the American public.”, reports the Express.

“Now she’s going to be facing something where she has to be accountable for harming the people she harms, including her sister.”

In contrast, speaking in 2022, Meghan’s attorney Michael J. Kump stated they would dedicate “the minimum attention necessary, which is all it deserves.”

Following the launch of the couple’s docuseries, Harry & Meghan, Samantha’s legal team argued that several remarks made by the Duchess and a program participant on the Netflix show – when considered collectively – constituted an effort to unjustly damage Samantha’s reputation.

During her 2021 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Meghan shared that she “grew up as an only child” and expressed her wish to have had siblings during her upbringing – noting that Samantha and Thomas Markle Jr. had already left their father’s household.

Samantha’s representatives previously contended that the program led audiences to believe that Meghan’s half-sister was involved in organizing the harassment campaign directed at the Duchess. They also maintained this portrayal was unjust.

Meghan never directly named Samantha while discussing the hostile messages she received, and the episode segment focusing on that subject concerned trolling conducted by multiple accounts.

The Duchess’ legal representatives stated in their previous court document: “An implicit or express statement that [Samantha] belongs to a hate group spreading disinformation about Meghan is an opinion protected by the First Amendment.”